New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most figure traditions documented in this book carve an object to represent a spirit, an ancestor, or an idea, a stand-in that the community treats symbolically rather than literally. The Lobi of Burkina Faso,…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several fetish or power-figure traditions documented in this book assign one carved form a single, fixed job. The Kongo, spread across three countries at the mouth of the Congo River, built a system where…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most masking traditions documented in this book draw a fairly clean line around what a mask is for: initiation, or funerals, or entertainment, rarely all at once and rarely including anything as concrete as…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Most carved figures documented in this book preserve, at minimum, the basic proportions of a body: head, torso, limbs, even when stylized heavily. The Goma of the northwestern end of Lake Tanganyika carved four-legged…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many masking traditions documented in this book carry ritual, initiatory, or entertainment functions. The Mau, northern neighbors of the Dan in Côte d’Ivoire, carve one whose purpose is closer to a courtroom than a…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several traditions documented in this book separate political authority from spiritual or occult power, assigning them to different offices entirely. The Sukuma of northern Tanzania collapse the two into a single person: each village…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many peoples documented in this book take their names from a place, an ancestor, or an occupation. The Mbala of the southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo take theirs from a color: tukula, the…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Many objects documented in this book carry ceremonial weight reserved for adults, initiates, or specialists. The Namji of northern Cameroon built theirs around a child’s plaything: a carved wooden fertility doll, given a name,…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking traditions documented in this book keep their objects hidden from the very initiates the rites are meant to transform, revealing finished masks only at a climactic unveiling. The Nkanu of Angola and…
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking and figure-carving traditions documented in this book treat a finished sculpture as a fixed, permanent object. Teke fetish figures, spread across both Congo Republics and Gabon, worked differently: a figure’s power was…
Queen Idia won a civil war for her son. He answered by inventing an office that outlasted them both. What Benin got right about power.
New: the 2nd edition of Within Carved Lines: The Secret Meanings of African Masks is out now. Get the book → Several masking traditions documented in this book carry a clear, unbroken line from sacred origin to present-day use. The Duma, or Aduma, boatmen of Gabon’s Ogooue River, present a harder case: their masks are…